Police Rescue Two South Koreans whom E-mail Scammers Kidnapped

Police in South Africa recently saved a man as well as his daughter from the clutches of Nigerian kidnappers following the two's arrival in the country so as for collecting a multimillion fortune they were supposed to get according to an e-mail, which however, turned out fraudulent. Security News Daily published this, January 13, 2012.

Police explained that the man, aged 65, and his daughter, around the thirties, were from South Korea. Together they traveled to SA to collect prize money worth tens-of-millions in the dollar currency apparently from a lottery game.

But it so happened that they got duped via a 419 scam of a huge scale. For, when they reached SA, believing to be owners of the fortune, they landed into the scammers' den inside a town and kept hostage for a full 4 days, the South African police said.

The kidnappers forcibly asked for $10m in exchange of the father and daughter's freedom but when the latter's mother reported to the Embassy of South Korea in SA, cops hunted down the place where both victims were kept and eventually rescued them. Without taking the case to court, the newly-liberated persons came back to Korea.

Investigation revealed that when the duo flew to SA during the 1st-week of January 2012, they first landed at the Johannesburg airport of OR Tambo.

There, according to SA cops, the e-mail scammers paid for a taxi, which would take the victims out of the airport to a fake destination for, they along with the taxi-driver were actually kidnapped and locked inside one house of Soweto, SA.

Thereafter, while the driver was capable for escaping, the captives became free only when the cops came in. Luckily, no ransom money required being deposited; however, 6 suspects from amongst whom 5 originally belong to Nigeria are now in police custody.

Meanwhile, the latest case of two traumatized and humiliated Koreans once again demonstrates how extremely dangerous scams such as above can be. Therefore, just for that, when Internauts get electronic mails, which promise magnificent prizes, they must simply ignore them, else it could mean draining of own pockets.